


This is the One that Reminds Me of My Trucker Hat

by The_Shadow



Category: Gravity Falls, Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Genre: Conversation, Crossover, Friendship, Hats, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 20:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11089191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Shadow/pseuds/The_Shadow
Summary: Wendy stops in a diner while on a road trip and meets a kindred spirit. SPOILERS for season 2. (Vague hints of Wendip if you squint).





	This is the One that Reminds Me of My Trucker Hat

The grimy diner Wendy found herself in looked even less-trustworthy than Lazy Susan's back home. At the very least, she knew what on the menu would give her the vomit-diarrhea combo the locals of Gravity Falls semi-affectionately called the Lazy Flu.

She hadn't even wanted to stop, but the drive was long and she was going to need to eat if she planned to go without sleep to get to her destination sooner.

She was vaguely aware of a man shouting as she sat down at the bar and got the attention of the harried-looking waitress.

Only after she'd gotten a cup of very strong, very bitter black coffee did she pay any attention him. His red hair was disheveled and he had deep bags under his eyes. He was wearing a cheap seersucker suit over a wrinkly blue shirt and his tie, one with a flat bottom like she saw Stan wearing in an old photo from the 70s. All in all, he looked a bit like the guy from _A Christmas Story_.

She had to smile herself at the hat sitting next to him. It was a ratty old straw hat that looked like it was about 20 years in need of replacement, but she knew the man would never get rid of a hat he clearly loved so much.

“Open your mind, why don't you! You think they're telling you the truth? Hah! They're just trying to keep you docile!”

He was ranting at a trucker, showing him a hastily put together poster board like the ones she'd make for report in middle school when she was shooting for a solid C. On it were pasted headlines, photos of a posh-looking man and young, attractive women and clippings newspapers articles. And on the top was pasted the words “Immortal Killer in Seattle.”

“Can you read or do I need to spell it out for you? I-M-M...” The trucker he was shouting at was clearly only humoring him, given that he looked like he could give her dad a run for his money in an arm wrestling contest.

“What's his deal?” Wendy asked the waitress as she refilled her coffee. The middle-aged, bottle blond just shrugged.

“He came in a couple of hours ago. I let him stay, because he wasn't in a state to drive, but he's been doing...that. I'm thinking of calling the cops.”

“Nah, I've got it covered. Give me another cup of coffee.”

She took his coffee and hers and walked over to the booth where the trucker was saying that nobody lived for ever or people would know about it.

“If you had to kill people to live forever, would you take an ad out? Use your head, for Christ's sake.”

She nudged the trucker with her elbow. Caught up in their argument, neither man had noticed her. “Tag you out?”

The trucker looked up gratefully at her.

Taking the time to take one less parting shot at the man, “Go home, you're crazy,” he got up and left. 

Wendy slid in to the booth across from the man. She pushed the second cup of coffee across the table. 

“'Sup, dude? Nice hat.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “You too.” He looked around the diner, as if he expected to see other teenagers or maybe Candid Camera making fun of him. When he didn't see anyone, he turned back and asked, “What do you want?”

“I wanted to hear about this killer of yours.”

He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. “This coffee is worse than Vincenzo's, but thanks.” He held out his hand. “Carl Kolchak, currently free-lance reporter.”

She took his hand and shook it. “Wendy Corduroy, high school graduate turned road warrior.”

Carl looked her up and down. “Are you really interested or is this some kind of joke?”

“Oh, I'm interested. I use to have a friend who was into all kinds of mystery junk. Only, it all turned out to be true.” When she saw that he still didn't trust her, she continued, “I'll make you a deal. You tell me about the killer and I'll tell you about the time my friends and I fought a shape shifter. “ She had been tempted to tell Carl about Weirdmageddon, but decided that it was too out there for him. He'd think she was making fun of him.

They were interrupted by the waitress asking if they wanted anything to eat. Wendy noticed that while Carl listened politely as the waitress rattled off the day's specials, he never stopped studying her.

“I'll even buy you breakfast,” she offered.

She wasn't entirely sure why she was mixing herself up with whatever was going on with this old-time reporter. She guessed it was because it was something they would have done in the old days.

“Deal.”

“We'll just take two of anything that's hot and ready,” she told the waitress. She then turned back to her temporary breakfast company. “So...immortal killer?”

“One Richard Malcolm or Malcolm Richards. He was a surgeon during the Civil war.”

“How did he become immortal?” Wendy asked. “Was he a vampire or something? Eat a lot of peanut brittle?”

Carl chuckled wryly, “Not a vampire, not this time. You know, we never found out how he came up with the process, but he knew a way of making and elixir of life.

“Let me guess, he had to murder people and eat their hearts.”

“Drink their blood, but otherwise...and it had to be six victims.”

“Why six?” Wendy asked.

“It's numerology. It's the same reason why he had to go on his murder sprees every 21 years. three times seven, see. Seven and three are important numbers in numerology.” Carl was getting into the story now. “1973, 1952, 1931 all the way back to 1868.”

Wendy nodded. With some quick mental math, she knew that this year was on the 21 year cycle. “Doesn't that mean he'd have to kill people in 1889? Wasn't that when Jack the Ripper was killing?”

Carl shook his head, but he nonetheless looked impressed. “Close, but he was earlier. I hope I never run into that guy. But Malcolm had the same MO. Back in 1889, he was killing hookers and transients and anyone else who wouldn't be missed. By the time we stopped him down, he killing exotic dancers, as they say in the vernacular.”

“Who's 'we'?”

The question was left unanswered when the waitress came back with two steaming hot plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Carl took his fork and started shoveling eggs into his mouth greedily as soon as his plate was put in front of him. Wendy guessed he hadn't eaten well in some time.

“Louise Harper,” Kolchak answered, after swallowing the last of his eggs. “Cute kid, hell of a mouth on her. She hates me now. She was a belly dancer and a friend of the first of the latest round of victims. She helped me track the good doctor to his hide out. You heard about the Chicago fire?”

Wendy nodded, sipping her coffee. 

“Well, Seattle burned down and you can visit the underground. And Malcolm had holed himself up down there. His mistake, as so often is the case, was pride. He founded a hospital and kept a portrait of himself there-that's how we found him, see-and the entrance to his lair was in the clinic that was put over it. Once we found that, he was easy to follow.

“So, I followed him down to his lair and stopped him from taking his sixth dose of the elixir. He believed he was close to being done, you see. He thought the seventh dose would finally keep him alive forever. Numerology again, it was all numerology with this guy. He also had to murder his victims within 18 days. Nine is the perfect number in numerology and 18 is-”

“Two times nine,” Wendy answered. “So what happened?”

“Well, he got old, didn't he?” Carl polished off his last piece of bacon. “He aged instantly. He started aging when his 21 years were up and he'd look a little younger after each murder, but after I smashed the final vial of blood, he became the old man he was.”

“Sort of like _The Last Crusade_.”

Carl gave her a genuinely confused looked. “What's that?”

“Seriously? It's only the greatest movie of all time, dude!”

Carl shrugged and Wendy let it go.

“So did they publish your story.”

Carl gave a short, humorless laugh. “Hah! Yeah, they published it. 20 issues of my story got off the presses before they could cover it up. This,” he gestured to his board, “is what left of the story. I've been look for work ever since.”

It was a wild story and just a few years ago, Wendy would have laughed in his face. But since the summer she met Dipper and Mabel, it was just another part of the reality she lived with.

“Hell of a story, man.”

“What about yours?”

Wendy had almost forgotten she'd promised to tell about the time they went into the bunker. As she finished off the last of her meal, she wondered where to start.

“Well, this boy I knew found a journal, right?”

Carl shot her a full mouth toothy grin.

“Oh, shut up,” She said without any real annoyance. She had dealt with her friends teasing her for years. “Anyway, the journal had all the information about the weird things going on in town and he spent the whole summer trying to unravel the mystery.”

“A man after my own heart. What sort of weird things?”

Wendy sipped her coffee trying to decide what to tell him.

“Would you believe we met Minotaurs? Or floating eyes? Unicorns?” Or evil triangles, she almost said.

“I might be persuaded. After all, I believe in your shape shifter.”

“That's just because I bought you breakfast.”

“And what a wonderful breakfast it was,” he said with only a touch of sarcasm. “But, please,  
don't let me interrupt you. When did you meet this shape shifter?”

“Well, one day we go down into this bunker mentioned in the journal and man, that place was insane. The author had stored up food for like 60 years. We had no idea what he was getting ready for.

“And he booby trapped the place. Dipper accidentally stepped on the wrong floor tile. We had to push a bunch of buttons, like some sci-fi junk to keep the walls from closing in on us. We only just made it out alive. Then his sister locked us in a closet,” she ignored Carl's smirk, “But we found a way out the back and found the author.

“Or so we thought.”

“But he was the shape shifter?”

“Yeah, man. But we didn't know that at first. He was good, he faked it so it look like he was fighting the monster. _And_ he copied the body of some old guy on a bean can. That's how we figured it out.”

“Baron Num Num's High Flying Beans! I haven't had those since I was a kid. I wonder if they still make them.”

Wendy shrugged. “Things really got bad when it took my form and Dipper had to kill one of us.”

“Lucky for you he chose right. How did he do it?”

“I gave him a sign. Something only we'd know.”

She realized too late that she was giving Carl the wrong idea of what they'd been back then, but she didn't really care. She didn't feel like trying to explain what she meant without breaking her promise to Dipper about the Lamby Lamby Dance and besides, it's not like Carl's opinion mattered.

“Quite a story,” Carl said. He had a shine in his eyes and Wendy wondered if she was going to end up in Carl's next article. If he ever got hired again, that is. Or maybe he'd be one of those conspiracy nuts online. “But what about this mysterious author? Who were they? Did you ever meet them? What were they planning on doing with all that information?”

“That,” Wendy said, “is a whole other story.” She glanced at her watch. “And I don't have time to tell you. Sorry, old-timer, but I've got to get going.” 

She pulled out her wallet and threw down a few bills. She was almost at the door, when she turned back to see the old reporter one last time. He was still watching her with interest. Not like some of the men back home sometimes did, but as if she were part of a mystery he wanted to solve.

“Hey, Kolchak!” she called. He nodded at her. “If you really want to hear that story, go to Gravity Falls, Oregon. Ask around for the Stans. The nerdy one will talk your ear off about it if you butter him up with vampires and immortal killers first.”

“Is that so? I just may do that. And where are you going?”

“Piedmont.”

Wendy walked out the door and to her bike, fondly adjusting her own hat, the one with blue tree she'd taken from Dipper the day he went home. The white around the tree was stained and yellowed, and the brim was fraying at the edges, but she still wore it everywhere. She sometimes wondered if he still had hers.

As the engine roared to life, she thought about that summer and the time since. With school, money and the Twins' parents getting divorced, Dipper and Mabel hadn't been able to come back to Gravity Falls. She hadn't seen her friends in nearly three years.

So...she was going to see them.

**Author's Note:**

> For a series that was so influential (seriously, there would be no X-Files, Buffy, Supernatural or Gravity Falls without Kolchak), it's basically fallen out of pop culture knowledge, which is sad because for all it's campiness, it was a truly special show, perfect for the Watergate era. I recommend you give it all a chance. The adventure Carl is referencing comes from the move The Night Strangler, which is one of the best.
> 
> My love of hats inspired this story. It's my personal head cannon that Carl and Dipper's hats art artifacts of great power that protect from supernatural weirdness.
> 
> The title of the song is lightly paraphrased from the Bowling for Soup song, "Trucker Hat".
> 
> This story is based on real events, in that there used to be a diner in my hometown that would make your sick if you ate there, because the food was so greasy. We called it the Silverman's Flu.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!


End file.
